With neither side prepared to give way on key points, “the final meeting” yesterday between the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and Naypyitaw, despite presence of Chinese representatives, failed to produce any desired results, according to both Shan and Wa sources.

Details however have yet to emerge. An unconfirmed report says the Chinese received a scathing remark from the junta chief negotiator Lt-Gen Ye Myint to the effect that Naypyitaw would not be held responsible in the event of an outbreak of hostilities along its border.

Wa leader Bao Youxiang reportedly said the UWSA was ready to become a Border Guard Force (BGF) under the command of the Burma Army if the latter would not insist on having junta officers at the battalion level. Ye Myint however chose to stick to his guns.

According to Naypyitaw’s plan, announced last April, armed groups that have ceasefire agreements have to convert themselves into BGFs, each battalion of which will have 326 men, 30 of them Burmese officers.

The New Democratic Army-Kachin (NDAK), Karenni Nationalities Peoples Liberation Front (KNPLF) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) have already been forced to accept and implement the scheme.

Others, their demands for greater autonomy having been rejected, have continued to put up resistance to Naypyitaw’s call.

Kokang leader Peng Jiasheng who had turned down Naypyitaw’s BDF plan has already been ousted and his status has changed from a “national race leader” to a “drug lord”.

The rest especially the Wa leaders, 8 of whom have already been indicted by the United States, are under the same sword of Damocles.

“The UWSA, in the past, had fought the Burma Army’s campaigns against the Mong Tai Army (MTA) and the Shan State Army (SSA) South,” said a Thai border watcher. “Now that it has stopped fighting (the SSA South), its usefulness to the junta appears to have diminished.”